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MBA 2013-2015
Production & Operations Management Project Study of Layout, Cranksgaft Division, Escorts Agri Machinery Group, Faridabadh
Submitted by:- Abhishek Bhatnagar (2013H149231P)
Darvin Xeona (2013H149266P) Dipesh Joshi (2013H149291P) Prateek Singh Bapna (2013H149284P) Sachin Soni (2013H149265P) Saurabh Tripathi (2013H149232P) Suhas John (2013H149288P)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Words are only representations of our regards and gratitude that we have towards our actions
and their inherent associations. As a matter of fact, without co-operation, no thought could be
coined into real action. Consistent motivation and invaluable support throughout any project
is an issue that cannot be quantitatively measured. These acknowledgements are only a
fraction of regards towards their gestures.
“Vital to every operation is co-operation”. We really agree to this wonderful quotation put
forth by Mr. Frank Tyger. This project was successful due to the co-operation extended by
people who have truly contributed towards it. We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Rajesh Matai
who’s deep sharing and synergy has moved us many levels beyond our own thinking. We
express our deep sense of gratitude to ma`am who has been a source of inspiration throughout
the course of this work with her inestimable advice and moral encouragement.
We are thankful to following persons for their valuable inputs and their kind co-operation and
guidance which helped us in carrying out this project study.
• Mr. Vijay Gambhir, Production head (ESCORTS Crankshaft Manufacturing Division
Plant Faridabad)
• Mr. Dinesh Prasad, Senior Plant Production Manager
We take this responsibility to express our profound and sincere gratitude to Department of
Management, BITS Pilani for providing us with the opportunity to explore the corridors of
the corporate world and gather invaluable knowledge and practical experience via the
Production and Operations Management project.
Finally, we would like to thanks those people who all are attached to this Project directly or
indirectly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS SL. NO. DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.
1 Introduction 1
2 Facility Layout Problem 4
3 Company Profile 7
4 Product description - Crankshaft 10
5 Operational details of plant 11
6 Plant layout 12
7 Addressing issue 14
8 Theory of constraints 15
9 Constraint identified 19
10 Recommendations 20
11 Conclusion 22
1. INTRODUCTION
Facility layout means planning for the location of all machines, utilities, employee workstations,
customer service areas, material storage areas, aisles, rest rooms, lunchrooms, drinking fountains, internal
walls, offices, and computer rooms, and for the flow patterns of materials and people around, into, and
within buildings. Through facility layouts, the physical arrangement of these processes within and around
buildings, the space necessary for the operation of these processes, and provided the space required for
support functions. As process planning and facility layout planning information continuous interchange
between these two planning activities, because each affects the other the objective of the facility layout
study is to minimize total cost, this cost comprises of construction cost, installation cost, material
handling cost, ease of future expansion, production cost, machine downtime cost, in-process storage cost,
safety cost, ease of supervision
There are five basic types of layouts for manufacturing facilities; process, product, cellular
manufacturing (CM), fixed position and Hybrid Layouts:
1. Process layouts (functional layouts, or job shops)
These are designed to accommodate variety in product designs and small batches .Process layout use
general purpose machines that can be changed over rapidly to new operations for different product
designs. These machines are usually arranged according to type of process being performed.
Manufacturing Operations Layout
• High Production capacity
• Low costs • Easy maintenance
Warehouse Layout • Efficient loading and
unloading • Ease of inventory
counts • Effective stocking
Service Operations Layout • Customer comfort • Stock rotation • Privacy and
Communication in work areas
Office operations layouts • Organization
structure reinforcement
• Privacy in work areas
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2. Product layout (production lines or assembly lines)
These are designed to accommodate only a few product designs. The machinery or equipment is
arranged to ensure continuous flow of material in an orderly mode throughout the plant.
Examples of product layout, Paper mills, dairies, cement factories, and automotive assembly plants,
Auto manufacturing. Product layout use specialized machines that are set up once to perform a specific
operation for a long period of time on one product, this machines requires great expense and long
down times to change over to a new product design. Companies that produce only a few product types
often set up a different production line for each product type. The facility layout would allow for the
different product lines to separate from each other.
Workers repeatedly perform a narrow range of activities on only a few product designs& required a
small rate of skill, training and supervision.
The planning and scheduling activities are complex, they are not ongoing (continuous), rather
planning & scheduling tend to be done intermittently as product changeovers occur. The primary
objective is to minimize material handling cost by properly arranging the equipment in the processing
sequence.
3. Cellular manufacturing layouts (CM)
In these layouts machines are grouped into cells, and the cells function somewhat like a product layout
island within a larger shop or process layout although the cell layout can take on many different forms,
the flow of parts more like a product layout than a job shop. CM layout would be attempted for these
reasons:
1-Machine changeovers are simplified.
2- Training periods for workers are shortened.
3-Materials-handling costs are reduced.
4- Parts can be made faster and shipped more quickly.
5- Required less in-process inventory.
6- Production is easier to automate.
4. Fixed-Position Layouts
Some manufacturing and construction firms use a layout for arranging work that locates the product in
a fixed position and transports workers, materials, machines, and subcontractors to and from the
product. Missile assembly, large aircraft assembly, ship construction, and bridge construction are
examples of Fixed-position layouts. Fixed-position layouts are used when a product is very bulky,
large, heavy, or fragile. The fixed-position nature of the layout minimizes the amount of product
movement required. Examples of fixed-position layout include larger shipbuilding and airplane
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manufacturing. Here, the ship or airplane is too large to be moved around the shop, the various stages
of manufacture (particularly assembly) are performed in one place by bringing all tools to the plane or
ship
5. Hybrid Layouts
Most manufacturing facilities use a combination of layout types( Hybrid Layouts .As an example of a
hybrid layout consider the final assembly of Boeing's commercial aircraft (i.e., models 737, 747, 757,
767, and 777). During final assembly, each aircraft unit is located in a fixed-position assembly bay.
However, every two or three days each aircraft unit is rolled out of its bay and pushed into the next
assembly bay, where different assembly tasks are performed. So, even though an aircraft is assembled
for two or three days at a time in a fixed position, it passes through six or eight different assembly bays
in a product layout fashion. It is important to understand the characteristics, advantages, and
disadvantages of each basic type of layout.
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2. FACILITY LAYOUT PROBLEM
The facility layout problem is one of the most fundamental quadratic assignment problems in
Operations Research. The problem has been widely studied by many researchers in Operations
Research and management science, and known to be NP complete (NP, nondeterministic polynomial).
A facility layout problem (FLP) is about arranging the physical departments or machines within a
facility to help the facility work in a productive way. A poor layout can lead to accumulation of work-
in process inventory, overloading of material handling system, inefficient setups and longer queues.
Therefore, solution of an FLP is a strategic study to be conducted. Traditionally, there are two
approaches for the facility layout problem. The first one is the quantitative approach aiming at
minimizing the total material handling cost between departments or machines based on a distance
function. The second one is the qualitative approach aiming at maximizing closeness rating scores
between departments or machines based on a closeness function.
Classification of FLP
When the flows of materials between the departments are fixed during the planning horizon, facility
layout problem is known as the static (single period) facility layout problem (SFLP). Researchers had
paid more attentions to SFLP, and now SFLP has two new trends. Approaches to get flexibility for
SFLP include to modify the SFLP and to increase the robustness of the SFLP. Gradually, SFLP
develops these two approaches to the dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) and robust layout,
respectively.
Up to now, there are existing three basic types of layout problem, including SFLP, DFLP and robust
layout problem. How to select the suitable type of layout problem is an urgent task. The appropriate
type of layout problem is based on the judgment conditions. The judgment conditions include whether
the material handling flows change over a long time or not, and whether it is easy for rearrangement or
not when the production requirement changes drastically. If the material handling flows change over a
long time, choose DFLP or robust layout; if not, choose SFLP. If rearrangement is easy when the
production requirement change drastically, choose DFLP; if not, choose robust layout.
Objectives of FLP
Traditionally, there are two basic types of objectives for FLP. The first one is the quantitative
(distance-based) objective aiming at minimizing the total material handling cost between departments
based on a distance function. The distance-based objective, considers all distance pairs, but due to
department areas, inter-department distances may be misleading. To help relieve this concern,
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distances have been measured in a variety of ways: from department centroid-to-centroid, expected
distance, distance from department boundaries, distance along the material handling network, etc.
The second one is the qualitative (adjacency-based) goal, aimed at maximizing the closeness
relationship scores between departments based on the placement of departments that utilize common
materials, personnel, or utilities adjacent to one another, while separating departments for reasons of
safety, noise, or cleanliness. The adjacency-based objective, if interpreted from a material handling
cost perspective, is based on the assumption that the material handling costs between two departments
are reduced significantly when the two departments are adjacent.
Constraints of FLP
Facility layout plays a crucial role in determining the throughout time of a manufacturing process. The
objective of the facility layout problem in manufacturing environment is the arrangement of facilities
on a floor shop, subject to the following constraints:
1. to reduce the flows among all facilities;
2. to have a regular flow of the parts and products not permitting bottleneck in the production;
3. to rationalize the space occupied by the facilities;
4. to permit flexibility considering that with the technological progress and the new demands in the
market, facilities could be added or changed.
5. to locate in a specified location.
Facilities are including machines, departments, storage equipment, and factory, material handling
systems, commerce and warehouse. In the manufacturing system it may be distinguished machines,
material handling systems and storage equipment.
Mathematical formulation of FLP
The facility layout problem is one of the best-studied problems in the field of combinatorial
optimization. A number of formulations have been developed for this problem. Models are categorized
depending on their nature, assumptions and objectives. More particularly the FLP has been modeled as
quadratic assignment problem (QAP), quadratic set covering problem (QSP), linear integer
programming problem (LIP), mixed integer programming problem (MIP), and graph theoretic
problem.
Solution methodologies for FLP
Several researches have been done in the facility layout problem. The solution methodologies for FLP
can be divided into exact algorithms, heuristics and meta-heuristic algorithms. The exact methods such
as the branch-and-bound and cutting plane algorithm have been successfully applied to FLP when the
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number of facilities is less than 16. However, when the number of facilities is larger than 16, FLP
cannot be solved optimally in reasonable time. In order to obtain good (near optimal) solution in a
reasonable computational time, heuristics were developed. Recently, meta-heuristic approaches such as
simulated annealing (SA), genetic algorithms (GA), tabu search (TS), and colony optimization have
been successfully applied to solve large FLP.
Other approaches
The major drawbacks of the aforementioned approaches lie in the fact that the search for the best
layout is not very efficient and the multi-objective nature are not considered in the problem. As a
matter of fact, facility layout problem can be considered one of the truly difficult ill-structured, multi-
criteria and combinatorial optimization problems. Many researchers still finding out for new and recent
developments rather than conventional approaches to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks.
Intelligent techniques such as expert systems, fuzzy logic and neural networks have been used as new
advancements for the tackled problem.
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3. COMPANY PROFILE
The Escorts Group is among India's leading engineering conglomerates operating in the high growth
sectors of agri-machinery, construction & material handling equipment, railway equipment and auto
components. Having pioneered farm mechanization in the country, Escorts has played a pivotal role in
the agricultural growth of India for over five decades. One of the leading tractor manufacturers of the
country, Escorts offers a comprehensive range of tractors, more than45 variants starting from 25 to 80
HP. Escort, Farmtrac and Powertrac are the widely accepted and preferred brands of tractors from the
house of Escorts. A leading material handling and construction equipment manufacturer, we
manufacture and market a diverse range of equipment like cranes, loaders, vibratory rollers and
forklifts. Escorts today is the world's largest Pick 'n' Carry Hydraulic Mobile Crane manufacturer.
Escorts has been a major player in the railway equipment business in India for nearly five decades. Our
product offering includes brakes, couplers, shock absorbers, rail fastening systems, composite brake
blocks and vulcanized rubber parts. In the auto components segment, Escorts is a leading manufacturer
of auto suspension products including shock absorbers and telescopic front forks. Over the years, with
continuous development and improvement in manufacturing technology and design, new reliable
products have been introduced.
Throughout the evolution of Escorts, technology has always been its greatest ally for growth. In the
over six decades of our inception, Escorts has been much more than just being one of India's largest
engineering companies. It has been a harbinger of new technology, a prime mover on the industrial
front, at every stage introducing products and technologies that helped take the country forward in key
growth areas. Over a million tractors and over 16,000 construction and material handling equipment
that have rolled out from the facilities of Escorts, complemented by a highly satisfied customer base,
are testimony to the manufacturing excellence of Escorts. Following the globally accepted best
manufacturing practices with relentless focus on research and development, Escorts is today in the
league of premier corporate entities in India. Technological and business collaboration with world
leaders over the years, globally competitive indigenous engineering capabilities, over 1600 sales and
service outlets and footprints in over 40 countries have been instrumental in making Escorts the Indian
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multinational. At a time when the world is looking at India as an outsourcing destination, Escorts is
rightly placed to be the dependable outsourcing partner of world's leading engineering corporations
looking at outsourcing manufacture of engines, transmissions, gears, hydraulics, implements and
attachments to tractors, and shock absorbers for heavy trailers. In today's Global Market Place, Escorts
is fast on the path of an internal transformation, which will help it to be a key driver of manufacturing
excellence in the global arena. For this they are going beyond just adhering to prevailing norms, they
are setting their own standards and relentlessly pursuing them to achieve their desired benchmarks of
excellence.
YEAR PRODUCT COMPANY DIVISION
LOCATION
1961 Escorts Tractors Escorts Ltd. (Tractor Division)
Faridabad
1962 Railway Couplers &Shock Absorbers
Escorts Railway Equipment Division
Faridabad
1963 Automotive Shock Absorbers
Automotive Suspension Product (Engg. Division)
Faridabad
1969 Ford Tractors, Now manufactured under the name “FARMTRAC”
Escorts Tractors Ltd. Faridabad
1971 Industrial & Construction Equipment
Escorts Construction & Equipment Ltd.
Faridabad
1991 Financial Services Escorts Finance Ltd. New Delhi 1996 Disengagement of
joint venture With new Holland & launch of FARMTRAC Tractor
Escorts Farmtrac div.
Faridabad
1998 Foundation of Tractor Transmission Plant(J.V. CarraroGrp, Italy)
Carraro India Ltd. Pune
1998 Foundation of 3rd Tractor Plant
Escorts Ltd. Pune
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Functional Divisions of Escorts
Overview of manufacturing division
Escorts - AMG has Tractor manufacturing capacity of 98,940 tractors / annum which is the highest in
Asia at one location. Its manufacturing operations are divided in three plants as
Component Plant
Tractor Assembly Plant
Crankshaft & Hydraulic Plant
Since we have visited and studied crankshaft department of the manufacturing division of the company
our area of focus in this report will be on that only and not other two.
Crankshaft & Hydraulic Plant is divided into two parts
Crankshaft Line
Hydraulics Line.
Crankshaft line consists of machine shop where crankshafts of all Tractor models are being
machined. It has State of the Art machines such as Rotary Miller, Pin Grinder, Journal Grinder, etc.
Hydraulic line consists of Machining as well as Assembly activities where critical parts of tractor
hydraulics such as Distributor, Hydraulic Cylinder, etc. are being machined and assembled. It has State
of the Art Honing and other precision machines.
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4. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION - CRANKSHAFT
The crankshaft, sometimes abbreviated to crank, is responsible for conversion between reciprocating
motion and rotational motion. In a reciprocating engine, it translates reciprocating linear piston motion
into rotational motion, whereas in a reciprocating compressor, it converts the rotational motion into
reciprocating motion. In order to do the conversion between two motions, the crankshaft has "crank
throws" or "crankpins", additional bearing surfaces whose axis is offset from that of the crank, to
which the "big ends" of the connecting rods from each cylinder attach.
It is typically connected to a flywheel to reduce the pulsation characteristic of the four-stroke cycle,
and sometimes a torsional or vibrational damper at the opposite end, to reduce the torsional vibrations
often caused along the length of the crankshaft by the cylinders farthest from the output end acting on
the torsional elasticity of the metal.
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5. OPERATIONAL DETAILS OF PLANT
The plant visited by us for carrying out the study of our project Solely manufactures the crankshafts
used in power tractors of escorts. These crankshafts are then transported to the assembly division
plant in Faridabad.
• The crankshaft manufacturing division plant works on following modes of operations-
- CNC software controlled machines (Computer numeric controlled)
- Manually handled machines ( only drilling part comprises of manual operations)
Following are some of the details about the operations of the plant :-
• Total no. of workers are:- 50-60
• On the floor workers:- 40-45
• Multi-machining and multi-skilling being implemented by workers for example, one person
on three machines
• Imported machines from Germany, Austria
• Lever machine tools
• FANUO software based machines
• Plant timings:- 0800 – 1630 hrs
• No. of shifts:- Single
• Target output : 75 crankshafts per day ( Decided based on the maximum possible utility of
available resources in accordance with the demand generated in the assembly plant.
• Actual output : 50-60 Crankshafts per day
The production line of the plant is Line Production which involves repetitive manufacturing process
in which each product passes through the same sequence of operations, and the machines and other
equipment are laid-out in the order they are used. Line production is dedicated to the needs of a
single or small group of products and (unlike in batch production) the process does not have to be
stopped and restarted for each new product.
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6. PLANT LAYOUT
Sequential processes carried out in the plant
Below mentioned are the series of machines that are used in the production of crankshafts –
1. Facing and centering machine
2. Miven CNC Turning machine
3. GF CNC machine (finishing)
4. GF CNC machine/KWS Turning machine
5. BFW Pin milling machine
6. Angular oil hole machine
7. Cross oil hole machine
8. Number Punching and 45 degree chamfering machine
9. Tapping at gear end of crank shaft
10. Rolling Machine
11. Final Turning
12. Induction hardening
13. Tempering Furnace
14. Grinding Machine (external)
15. Grinding Machine (internal)
16. Green Grinding
17. AWH 800 CNC
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18. Straightening
19. Naxospin Grinder
20. Flark hole drilling
21. Threading of holes (Conventional, Radial, Drilling machine)
22. Lapping after grinding (Done manually)
23. Final threading of holes
24. ABRO Dynamic balancing (two machines simultaneously used here to increase production)
25. Final inspection (Quality assurance)
26. Oil dipping for rust prevention (And then send to storage)
Great care must be observed in the manufacture of the crankshaft. While machining, the shaft must
be properly supported between centres and special precautions should be taken to avoid springing.
The journals and the crank pins are ground to exact size after turning. After this, the crankshaft is
balanced. Large shafts of low speed engines are balanced statically. Grinding is followed by hand
lapping with emery cloth.
Forged Crankshaft
Forged crankshafts are made from SAE 1045 or a similar type of steel. The crankshaft is formed
from a hot steel billet through a series of forging dies. Each die changes the shape of the billet
slightly. The crankshaft blank is finally formed with the last die. The blanks are then machined to
finish the crankshaft. Forging makes a very dense, tough crankshaft with a metal’s grain structure
running parallel to the principle direction of stress.
Production Process
First the molten metal is poured in the moulds of crankshaft to give it a shape. Then from machines 1
to 16 all the drilling, shaping, filing process takes place. Then a crankshaft is ready it is given a high
pressure air cleaning using air compressor to remove all the dust particles from it. After that
hardening process starts in which three units of crankshaft is heated to a very high temperature in the
tempering furnace and then suddenly it is cooled down by dipping it into the very cold water. After
this batch of 30 crankshafts are heated slowly to a very high temperature and then it is slowly cooled
down. After this, finishing process takes place. Then the ready crankshafts are sent to the inspection
team where the crankshafts undergo quality checks and are checked whether the crankshafts are of
proper measurement. If it is not then they are sent to the proper stage where it can get corrected.
After this the selected crankshafts are dipped in the oil tank to protect them from the rust. When all
this process is done these crankshafts are sent to warehouse.
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7. ADDRESSING ISSUE
The plant was capable of producing 75 crankshafts per shift and as per the agreement between
management and workers this was the target also. But as per the records available in the plant it was
producing only 50-60 crankshafts per day. That is a dip of about 20%-33%. The facts that this plant
produces half of the requirement and crankshaft is an important part in the engine makes this a very
important issue as any dip in production rate here reduces the entire system efficiency of Agri
Machines Group. Hence we took up this as our addressing issue and tried to find out whether any
layout problems are there associated to this dip in production and tried analysing those to arrive at
some recommendations.
The problems that we identified during this study are
Bottleneck issues (Constraints)
The constraint that we identified in the system was the conveyor belt which causes hinderance to
worker movements and scrap movements.
Maintenance issues
The plant was having problems with maintenance of the machines. Maintenance was taking long
time and the unavailability of CNC programmers was another issue that the plant was facing
Operator problems
Operators of the equipment were trained just to operate the machine they were not having required
knowledge about the machine that they were working on. Hence maintenance department were
required for even for minor issues of the machines.
Lengthy tool changeover time
There were some machines were tool was required to be changed for completing the operation. Such
machines were creating delays as the tool changeover time was not considered while allotting the
time limitations to machines.
Work area
The area available in the plant was less. This created problems especially in the movement of
workers inside the plant.
We also observed that some machines were taking batches of crankshaft in batch of 3 or even 30 to
process while some others were taking individual crankshaft. But as this issue was already addressed
by the plant management we did not consider this issue in our study.
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8. THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS Concept of “Theory of Constraint” was given by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt in 1984 in his famous book
“The Goal” where he described it for the first time.
It assumes that in an organization consisting of multilinked process, there will always be a constraint
(bottleneck) that will lower down the efficiency of organization. If the constraint is identified and
modified, overall efficiency of the organization can be improved.
The five focusing steps of Theory of Constraint
1. Identify the system's constraint(s) (that which prevents the organization from obtaining more
of the goal in a unit of time)
2. Decide how to exploit the system's constraint(s) (how to get the most out of the constraint)
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision (align the whole system or organization to
support the decision made above)
4. Elevate the system's constraint(s) (make other major changes needed to increase the
constraint's capacity)
5. Repeat If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not
allow inertia to cause a system's constraint.
The goal of a commercial organization is: "Make more money now and in the future", and its
measurements are given by throughput accounting as: throughput, inventory, and operating expenses.
The five focusing steps aim to ensure ongoing improvement efforts are centered on the organization's
constraint(s). In the TOC literature, this is referred to as the process of ongoing
improvement (POOGI).
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Step One – Identify the Constraint
In this step, the manufacturing process is reviewed to identify the constraint. A simple but often
effective technique is to literally walk through the manufacturing process looking for indications of
the constraint.
Look for large accumulations of work-in-process on the plant floor. Inventory often
accumulates immediately before the constraint.
Look for areas where process expeditors are frequently involved. Special attention and
handholding are often needed at the constraint to ensure that critical orders are completed on
time.
Review equipment performance data to determine which equipment has the longest average
cycle time. Adjust out time where the equipment is not operating due to external factors, such
as being starved by an upstream process or blocked by a downstream process. Although such
time affects throughput, the time loss is usually not caused or controlled by the
starved/blocked equipment.
Ask operators where they think equipment is not keeping up with demand. Pay close
attention to these areas, but also look for other supporting indicators.
The deliverable for this step is the identification of the single piece of equipment that is constraining
process throughput.
Step Two – Exploit the Constraint
In this step, the objective is to make the most of what you have – maximize throughput of the
constraint using currently available resources. The line between exploiting the constraint (this step)
and elevating the constraint (the fourth step) is not always clear. This step focuses on quick wins and
rapid relief; leaving more complex and substantive changes for later.
Create a suitably sized inventory buffer immediately in front of the constraint to ensure that it
can keep operating even if an upstream process stops.
Check quality immediately before the constraint so only known good parts are processed by
the constraint.
Ensure that the constraint is continuously scheduled for operation (e.g. operate the constraint
during breaks, approve overtime, schedule fewer changeovers, cross-train employees to
ensure there are always skilled employees available for operating the constraint).
Move routine maintenance activities outside of constraint production time (e.g. during
changeovers).
Offload some constraint work to other machines. Even if they are less efficient, the improved
system throughput is likely to improve overall profitability.
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Offload some work to other companies. This should be a last resort if other techniques are not
sufficient to relieve the constraint.
The deliverable for this step is improved utilization of the constraint, which in turn will result in
improved throughput for the process. If the actions taken in this step “break” the constraint (i.e. the
constraint moves) jump ahead to Step Five. Otherwise, continue to Step Three.
Step Three – Subordinate and Synchronize to the Constraint
In this step, the focus is on non-constraint equipment. The primary objective is to support the needs
of the constraint (i.e. subordinate to the constraint). Efficiency of non-constraint equipment is a
secondary concern as long as constraint operation is not adversely impacted.
By definition, all non-constraint equipment has some degree of excess capacity. This excess capacity
is a virtue, as it enables smoother operation of the constraint. The manufacturing process is purposely
unbalanced:
Upstream equipment has excess capacity that ensures that the constraint buffer is
continuously filled (but not overfilled) so that the constraint is never “starved” by the
upstream process.
Downstream equipment has excess capacity that ensures that material from the constraint is
continually processed so the constraint is never “blocked” by the downstream process.
Some useful techniques for this step include:
Implement DBR (Drum-Buffer-Rope) on the constraint as a way of synchronizing the
manufacturing process to the needs of the constraint.
Subordinate maintenance to the constraint by ensuring that the constraint is always the
highest priority for maintenance calls.
Add sprint capacity to non-constraint equipment to ensure that interruptions to their operation
(e.g. breakdowns or material changes) can quickly be offset by faster operation and additional
output.
Operate non-constraint equipment at a steady pace to minimize stops. Frequent inertial
changes (i.e. stops and speed changes) can increase wear and result in breakdowns.
The deliverable for this step is fewer instances of constraint operation being stopped by upstream or
downstream equipment, which in turn results in improved throughput for the process. If the actions
taken in this step “break” the constraint (i.e. the constraint moves) jump ahead to Step Five.
Otherwise, continue to Step Four.
Step Four – Elevate Performance of the Constraint
In this step, more substantive changes are implemented to “break” the constraint. These changes may
necessitate a significant investment of time and/or money (e.g. adding equipment or hiring more
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staff). The key is to ensure that all such investments are evaluated for effectiveness (preferably using
Throughput Accounting metrics).
Use performance data (e.g. Overall Equipment Effectiveness metrics plus down time
analytics) to identify the largest sources of lost productive time at the constraint.
Target the largest sources of lost productive time, one-by-one, with cross-functional teams.
Implement ongoing plant floor reviews within shifts (a technique called Short Interval
Control) to identify tactical actions that will improve constraint performance.
Implement a setup reduction program to reduce the amount of productive time lost to
changeovers.
Evaluate the constraint for potential design updates and/or component upgrades.
Purchase additional equipment to supplement the constraint (a last resort).
The deliverable for this step is a significant enough performance improvement to break the constraint
(i.e. move the constraint elsewhere).
Step Five – Repeat the Process
In this step, the objective is to ensure that the Five Focusing Steps are not implemented as a one-off
improvement project. Instead, they should be implemented as a continuous improvement process.
If the constraint has been broken (the normal case), recognize that there is a new constraint.
Finding and eliminating the new constraint is the new priority (restart at Step One).
If the constraint has not been broken, recognize that more work is required, and a fresh look
needs to be taken, including verifying that the constraint has been correctly identified (restart
at Step One).
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9. CONSTRAINT IDENTIFIED
We identified that the conveyor belt of the plant is the constraint that limits the entire plants
efficiency. The design of the conveyor belt was such that it occupies a major portion of the space and
restricts worker and scrap movement. Whenever a forklift comes in for taking the scrap out, some
portions of the conveyor belt had to be removed for making way for the forklift. Thus flow gets
broken for some time. Also the forklift further reduces the space inside the plant and causes a major
safety concern that further reduces the worker movements which causes a decline in the production
rate.
The conveyor belt used was manual were workers were required to push the batches of crankshaft
through the rollers manually. This system provided flexibility and the workers were free to work
without any time limitation as they themselves are controlling the flow. This also created a negative
impact on the efficiency. Workers were not adhering to any time limits set by the management. Once
a batch of crankshaft arrives at a particular workstation the time limit set by the management for
finishing the work in a station is 5-6mins (for majority of stations). The workers ‘utilized’ the
flexibility provided by the system and they were taking more than the set limits.
Another major problem created was that since the conveyor belt system was manually operated and
the workers are required to push the crankshaft from each workstation to next workstation, the
workstations were placed close to each other to reduce the distance between them to the minimum
possible. Thus the space between each of the machines is very less. This created a major problem
while a maintenance issue arises for any of the machines in the plant.
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10. RECOMMENDATIONS
After the close observation and holistic analysis of the process and paradigms followed in Escorts ltd
we recommend that the existing manual conveyor belt should be replaced by an overhead conveyor
belt with hanging hooks. The fig given below shows the so called overhead conveyor belt with
hanging hooks. In Escorts each work station takes 5-6 mins for completing the particular work. So
the conveyor belt should be operated to move at a constant speed. The belt should be made to lower
down at each work station so that the employees can load the inventories. The hurdles that Escorts
will face are the cost incurred and the time taken for the installation. When discussed with the plant
supervisor we were informed about the company policy of providing paid holidays to their
employees during low demand seasons. This time can be utilized for the installation of the overhead
conveyor belt.
Advantages that they will get
Better utilization of floor space of the plant
Employees’ adherence to time
No hindrance to the existing assembly line
Inventories and scraps carried through the conveyor belt can be easily handled and removed
Can move the inventories in any direction
Move items in bulk
Better safety
Other recommendations include:
CNC Programmer – For troubleshooting
Change time allotments
Increase safety measures
Give separate storage for work in progress inventory
Optimize loading, unloading and tool change timings
Introduce shift system
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Since most of the machines are fully automated with CNCs, it is very necessary to have a full time
CNC trouble shoot expert within the plant. The unnecessary delay caused due to the trouble shooting
of the CNCs have cost the company huge. The practice followed for the storage of work in progress
inventories is that they are left on the conveyor belt. We strongly recommend that a separate space
should be allocated for storing the work in progress inventories. Optimizations of the loading,
unloading and tool change timings will reduce the time taken for the production activity and the
productivity can be increased. Introducing work in shift practice will help in motivating the
employees and improving the efficiency of the plant.
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11. CONCLUSION
This industrial project provided us the ultimate experience & opportunity to have practical
knowledge about the best practices followed in the industry. We were able to relate the concepts of
Production & operations management with the real-world scenarios and based on the Layout study
what we have done on ESCORTS Faridabad plant by the virtue of this project, we were able to
identify a few loopholes in the existing system and hence successfully came up with the feasible
solution for the same using the theory of constraints. The recommendations made by us have been
successfully conveyed to the concerned authorities of the ESCORT’S crankshaft manufacturing
division.
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